Customer behaviour has evolved significantly in recent years. As per Forbes, consumers expect more when it comes to product transparency, frictionless online experiences, and — of course — personalised content.
It is crucial to meet as well as exceed customers’ expectations in such times when there is cutthroat competition. That is why seamless customer experience is critical for brands to stand out from the crowd and build long-term relationships.
Some quick facts (via Oberlo):
- As per 81 percent of consumers, a positive customer service experience increases the probability of them making more purchases.
- 95 percent of consumers claim that customer service is important for brand loyalty.
- More than 6 out of 10 consumers have stated that they will quit buying from a brand and shift to a competitor after even one bad customer service experience.
- 68 percent of consumers claim that they are willing to cash out more for products from a brand that offers good customer service experiences.
Clearly, overlooking customer service can be detrimental to the growth of your eCommerce business.
Ways to improve eCommerce customer service
1. Live Chat.
Key driving forces in eCommerce are convenience and instant gratification. If you think of it, the entire customer experience can be summed up in three steps.
- Find the right product that meets current needs and demands
- Add products to the cart, and check out as soon as possible
- Finally, get the products delivered home (fast shipping preferred)
Customers expect speed across all these steps. That’s where live chat comes in. Anyone who is browsing an eCommerce website is bound to have multiple questions or queries, and if those questions aren’t answered promptly, it might lead to cart abandonment and a higher bounce rate.
Live chats help build customer confidence greatly.
Source: Andie Swim
2. Social Media.
As per Hootsuite, 44.8% of global internet users use social media to explore brand-related informationand brands use it to write a brand story. And that’s the place where customer service is of utmost importance.
We are in the age of conversational business, and social media platforms (especially Twitter and Facebook) are at the helm of it.
Oftentimes we see shoppers commenting with their queries and concerns in the ‘comments section’ on Instagram/Facebook, or Tweet them on Twitter.
Brands need to be on their feet to identify and reply to such queries at the earliest and escalate those concerns to the right people so that prompt action can be taken.
3. Deploy an omnichannel strategy.
If you are scaling quickly, you can't nit-pick what platforms or places you need to be more active on because your consumers are everywhere be it phone, web, social media, or app. In such cases, deploying an omnichannel strategy is the best option.
However, be sure that the responses should be consistent and customised across all channels. For example, in the case of email, the responses can be comprehensive, but in the case of Twitter, they should be short and to the point.
An omnichannel strategy also ensures that the customers don’t have to repeat themselves. As per HubSpot, 66% of shoppers said that the most frustrating part of getting customer service help is waiting on hold or repeating the same information to multiple representatives.
4. Personalised experiences.
Today consumers expect a seamless shopping experience and love it when they are valued. But there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to eCommerce.
To enhance your customer service practices, get to know your customers first. A personalised shopping experience makes them feel like you understand their requirements even before they recognize them. Using a CDP like Segment will enable you to create a complete view of your customers to better personalize your CX strategy
For example, eCommerce brands are heavily leveraging quizzes at the moment. Quizzes help brands know their potential customers better and then recommend products that best suit their needs. It’s a win-win!
Source: Andie Swim
5. Be wary of your response time.
Even if you have deployed all the latest tech and trends to ensure a seamless experience for your customers, if there is a huge delay in response time — you will likely disappoint them.
Consumers expect prompt responses when it comes to online shopping. As per, Statista, 12% of Americans claimed that their major frustration with customer service was “lack of speed.”
In addition, you can also add a call now button to your website so that customers can reach out to you. This is a very good way to engage your audience and improve your conversion rate. It is also an easy and quick way for you to resolve any complaints or issues with your customers.
Quick response with consistent quality is the recipe for great customer service.
6. Give priority to transparency.
Each time a customer purchases from your eCommerce store, transparency is a must. Provide them full access to their billing history, the status of their order, and their preferred payment options, by providing Invoice template in pdf format.
To ensure greater transparency, businesses should allow customers to view their entire order history several months into the past. Doing so increases customer retention multi-fold.
7. Track customer satisfaction score.
To make the most of your customer service strategy, you cannot miss out on surveys and gathering feedback. They are the building blocks of great customer service. Be it good or bad — customer feedback can be extremely insightful and help you better your processes.
8. Self-service options.
More than often, customers dread reaching out to customer service agents, and prefer finding the solution to any concerns on their own. In this case, brands can provide How to videos or an FAQ section on their website.
You can pick the top 8-10 questions that are recurring in nature and add them to the main landing page or have a separate FAQ page. Incase if you dont have a landing page yet, you can easily create one with a landing page builder. That way customers can get the answers to their questions quickly.
All in all, good customer care always triumphs. Brands that walk an extra mile are recognized and applauded for their efforts, and below is an anecdote that proves this.
9. Video Tutorials.
Videos can be a great way to educate your users. Having a small video tutorial to help your customers can go a long way to give them a pleasant customer experience.
You can utilize any video platform like youtube to host your videos and put it on your website. These videos can be of all the major repetitive issues faced by the users earlier.
Final Words
60% of customers claim “brands that resolve issues quickly demonstrate good customer service”. It is safe to say that good customer service equates to a good brand reputation.
As an eCommerce brand, your customers will probably have questions about your products, and that is why you must have outstanding customer service to help them out instantly and thereby reduce the cart abandonment rate.
While there are plenty of ways to improve eCommerce customer service, the products you sell need to be considered too.
When you run an online store, you need to make sure the products you offer are trending and meet your audience's current demands. In case they don’t, your customer service efforts, no matter how good, may not yield the expected ROI.
